First of all, 3GPP LTE (3rd generation partnership projecting long term evolution) communication system is schematically described for one example of a wireless communication system to which the present invention is applicable.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of E-UMTS network structure as an example of a wireless communication system.
E-UMTS (evolved universal mobile telecommunications system) is the system evolved from a conventional UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) and its basic standardization is progressing by 3GPP. Generally, E-UMTS can be called LTE (long term evolution) system. For the details of the technical specifications of UMTS and E-UMTS, Release 7 and Release 8 of ‘3rd Generation Partnership Project Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network’ can be referred to.
Referring to FIG. 1, E-UMTS consists of a user equipment (UE), a base station (eNode B: eNB) and an access gateway (AG) provided to an end terminal of a network (E-UTRAN) to be connected to an external network. The base station is able to simultaneously transmit multi-data stream for a broadcast service, a multicast service and/or a unicast service.
At least one or more cells exist in one base station. The cell is configured to have one of bandwidths including 1.25 MHz, 2.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, 20 MHz and the like and then provides an uplink or downlink transmission service to a plurality of user equipments. Different cells can be set to provide different bandwidths, respectively. A base station controls data transmissions and receptions for a plurality of user equipments. A base station sends downlink scheduling information on downlink (DL) data to inform a corresponding user equipment of time/frequency region for transmitting data to the corresponding user equipment, coding, data size, HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat and request) relevant information and the like. And, the base station sends uplink scheduling information on uplink (UL) data to a corresponding user equipment to inform the corresponding user equipment of time/frequency region available for the corresponding user equipment, coding, data size, HARQ relevant information and the like. An interface for a user traffic transmission or a control traffic transmission is usable between base stations. A core network (CN) can consist of an AG, a network node for user registration of a user equipment and the like. The AG manages mobility of the user equipment by a unit of TA (tracking area) including a plurality of cells.
The wireless communication technology has been developed up to LTE based on WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) but the demands and expectations of users and service providers are continuously rising. Since other radio access technologies keep being developed, new technological evolution is requested to become competitive in the future. For this, reduction of cost per bit, service availability increase, flexible frequency band use, simple-structure and open interface, reasonable power consumption of user equipment and the like are required.
Recently, ongoing standardization of the next technology of LTE is performed by 3GPP. Such technology shall be named LTE-A. Big differences between LTE system and LTE-A system may include a system bandwidth difference and an adoption of a relay node.
The goal of LTE-A system is to support maximum 100 MZ wideband. To this end, LTE-A system uses carrier aggregation or bandwidth aggregation to achieve the wideband using a plurality of frequency blocks.
According to the carrier aggregation, a plurality of frequency blocks are used as one wide logical frequency band to use wider frequency band. And, a bandwidth of each frequency block may be defined based on a bandwidth of a system block used by LTE system. And, each frequency block is transmitted using a component carrier.
According to 3GPP LTE Rel-8 of the related art, a user equipment performs a power control operation for a system based on a single antenna, a single layer and a single codeword. Yet, in a system that adopts to use multiple antennas, multiple layers and multiple codewords, a user equipment is unable to sufficiently support a multi-antenna, multi-layer and multi-codeword based power control operation with the single-antenna based power control operation of the related art. However, efforts have not been made to research and develop the multi-antenna, multi-layer and multi-codeword based power control operation in detail.